ne of the major problems America faces is a large
population of religious fundamentalists who have become as fanatical
in their own way as any Middle Eastern Ayatollah. At present, they
are caught up in their own version of the myth of the end of the
world, and hope that by working to bring it about, they'll get to
sit at the right hand of their deity and to hell with everyone else.
No doubt fistfights will break out over who gets to sit closest, but
that is a subject for another article.

So fervent is the belief of the mythoholics that
they are ready and willing to sacrifice money, children, civil
rights, freedom, even life itself (so long as it is someone else's)
to bring about the final rapture and end of the world. Never mind
that the story of the Rapture appears nowhere in the Bible, but was
the invention of a Civil War veteran, Cyrus Scofield. Never mind
that the guy selling this belief is a child molester and makes money
off of these fables, the seekers (and there is one born every
minute) do so want to believe!

So, I thought it might be appropriate to list
some of the many other times in history that religious fanatics of
all kinds have decided the world was about to end, what they did
about it, and what really happened to those who followed them when
the world did not end as scheduled.

AD 30 Jesus. According to Matthew 16:28, Jesus
himself predicted his second coming and the end of the world within
the lifetime of his contemporaries.

AD 156 A man named Montanus declared himself to
be the "Spirit of Truth," the personification of the Holy Spirit,
mentioned in the Gospel of John, who was to reveal all truth.
Montanus quickly gathered followers, including a pair of far-seeing
"prophetesses", who claimed to have visions and ecstatic experiences
supposedly from God. They began to spread what they called "The
Third Testament, a series of revelatory messages which foretold of
the soon-coming Kingdom of God and "The New Jerusalem," which was
about to descend from heaven to land in Montanus' city of Pepuza, in
Phrygia (modern-day Turkey), where it would be home for all "true"
believers. The word was spread, and all were urged to come to
Phrygia to await the Second Coming. The movement divided Christians
into two camps, even after the New Jerusalem didn't appear. Whole
communities were fragmented, and continuous discord resulted.
Finally, in AD 431, the Council of Ephesus condemned Chiliasm, or
belief in the Millennium, as a dangerous superstition, and Montanus
was declared to be a heretic. Despite the failure of the prediction,
the cult survived several centuries until it was ordered
exterminated by Pope Leo I. --SSA pg 54

AD 247 Christian prophets declare that the
persecutions by the Romans are a sign of the impending return of
Jesus.

AD 300 Lactantius Firmianus (AD c260 - AD c340),
called the "Christian Cicero", from his Divinae Institutiones:
"The fall and ruin of the world will soon take place, but it seems
that nothing of the kind is to be feared as the city of Rome stands
intact." Rome would fall in AD 410. --TEOTW pg 27

AD 365 Hilary of Poitiers predicted the world
would end in 365.

AD 380 The Donatists, a North African Christian
sect, predicted the world would end in 380.

AD 387 St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, identified
the Goths with Ezekial's Gog. The Goths had just destroyed
the Imperial army at Adrianople, prompting Ambrose to say, "...the
end of the world is coming upon us." --TEOTW pg 27

AD 300 St. Martin, Bishop of Tours: "Non est
dubium, quin antichristus...There is no doubt that the
Antichrist has already been born. Firmly established already in his
early years, he will, after reaching maturity, achieve supreme
power." --TEOTW pg 27

AD 410 When Rome was sacked, some proclaimed, (as
reported by St. Augustine of Hippo) "Behold, from Adam all the years
have passed, and behold, the 6,000 years are completed." This
alludes to the Great Week theory, held by many millennialists, that
the God-alloted time of man on earth was 6,000 years, to be followed
by a thousand years of peace under the earthly reign of Christ.
--TIME pg 30

AD 500 At the mid-fifth century, Vandal invasions
recalled calculations that the world would end in the year 500, 6000
years after Creation, and spurred new calculations to show that the
name of the Vandal king Genseric represented 666: the number of the
Beast. --Apoc pg 34

AD 500 Hippolytus of Rome, a third-century
theologian supported the oft-accepted (for the day) view of the end
of the world occuring sometime around the year AD 500. He used a
mass of scriptural evidence, including the dimensions of the ark of
the covenant. --TIME pg 31

AD 500 Roman theologian Sextus Julius Africanus
(ca. 160-240) predicted the second coming of Jesus in the year 500.

AD 500 The theologian Irenaeus predicted the
second coming of Jesus in the year 500.